Winchester 1887 (26 page)

James Mann did not know how far nor for how long he had ridden, but his butt hurt. He had been smart enough not to keep the horse he had borrowed in a gallop. He would slow to a trot, then a walk, letting the fine animal catch its breath, then resume into a walk, trot, and gallop. Ahead of him, Link McCoy and Zane Maxwell must have been doing the same, because he'd made sure he could see their dust.

About five miles from the fort, his father and Jackson Sixpersons caught up with him.

“What do you think you're doing?” his father asked.

“The same as you're doing,” he snapped. “And him!” He jerked his head at the old Cherokee.

“We'll need him,” Sixpersons said.

Millard turned his anger on the Cherokee lawman. “He's just a kid.”

“We still need him.” Sixpersons kicked his horse into a walk, following the trail of the two outlaws.

James followed, and, reluctantly, so did his father.

They came to the lightly timbered hills and slowed their animals to a walk, no longer seeing dust. Two rifles and the Cherokee's shotgun were at the ready.

“Cave country, isn't it?” Millard's voice was steady, but quiet.

Sixpersons answered with a nod.

James listened. At that time of year, birds should be singing in the trees on the hills, but the only sound came from the hard-blowing horses.

“Their mounts have to be as played out as our own,” Millard said.

Again, the old Indian nodded.

“You circle around,” Millard suggested to the old lawman. “Leave James here to cover the rear.”

The boy knew why. His father wanted to keep him safe, and the last direction Maxwell or McCoy would run would be north, back toward Fort Washita and the posses that the Chickasaws and probably the Texans had formed.

Millard spoke again. “I'll ride the trail.”

James swallowed. That trail led right into open country, through the hills that were filled with caves. A man riding there would be a sitting duck, setting himself up to get shot.

A horse whinnied in the distance on the other side of the hills. That seemed to settle everything. McCoy or Maxwell, or likely both, had dismounted on the far side of the hills, left their run-down horses, and come back around to set up an ambush. They had no other choice . . . except surrender and be hanged by Judge Parker in Fort Smith.

“No,” Sixpersons said. “You circle around. I'll ride the trail.”

“Why?” Millard snapped.

“Because I'm the only one of you with a badge.” The eyeglasses glinted as the Cherokee looked directly at James. “Well”—the Indian grinned—“the only one with a commission.”

Millard stared in silence but finally sucked in a long breath, exhaled, and rode his horse off to the west, moving deeper through the trees, making a wide berth. A short while later, he dismounted. Carrying the Winchester rifle, he moved slowly but confidently in a crouch through the woods that swallowed him.

“Dismount, James,” Sixpersons said. “You got a good view from right here.”

James obeyed, ground-reining the horse. His heart pounded. His mouth felt incredibly dry. He lay on his stomach, Winchester against his shoulder, and stared up the hill, barren of just about everything except a few rocks too small for anyone to take shelter behind.

“It's harder to shoot uphill,” Sixpersons instructed. “Just aim low. Always aim low.” He pulled his hat down, kneed his pinto's sides, and the horse carried him out from the trees and up the hill.

Almost an eternity passed. James wet his lips and kept his eyes darting left, right, trying to find someone, some sign. His mouth hung open as he waited to shout a warning as soon as he saw McCoy or Maxwell—just to give that brave Cherokee with the shotgun a chance.

It happened before he realized what was actually happening.

Two figures materialized, springing from the earth on opposite ends of the trail like demons rising from Hades. As soon as James understood what he had seen, the two men were firing, the one on the right with a shotgun, the one on the left with a revolver.

The lawman's horse screamed and fell to its side as Sixpersons dove off, landing with a thud and rolling over. Both men ran toward him to finish the job, to kill the Cherokee.

James fired. He couldn't have told you which one he shot at, McCoy on the right, or Maxwell on the left. All he remembered was that he was charging, firing the Winchester, not even feeling the big rifle's savage kicks.

A bullet whined off a rock in front of McCoy's feet, and James understood that his father was shooting from his position up the hill. His father had McCoy covered, leaving Maxwell to James. He sprinted in that direction, pulling the trigger and working the lever as he ran. He could make out Sixpersons crawling for his Winchester '87, his leg bleeding from several buckshot from McCoy's scattergun. Maxwell ran, too. Both headed straight for the Cherokee.

Maxwell slid to a stop, saw James, and brought the revolver up. James fired. Nothing happened. He felt no kick. Heard no shot. He had shot the weapon empty, yet he did not stop charging, did not stop screaming like some old Rebel in some long-ago Civil War battle.

He shifted the weapon, grabbed the barrel, and swung as hard as he could, still running like a madman as Maxwell's finger tightened on the trigger.

James hit the ground with a thud and came up dazed. The bullet had scorched his side, but that was it. His Winchester was on the ground beside the body of Zane Maxwell, whose skull had been crushed by the heavy rifle.

More bullets sounded on the other side. James turned, saw the smoke from his father's rifle in the woods, saw McCoy dropping back into a hole.

Grabbing Sixpersons' shotgun, James picked it up and ran after the outlaw, following him straight into that hole, straight into the depths of hell.

“No!” Jackson Sixpersons yelled and heard what he thought was an echo, only to realize that it was the boy's father shouting from his position on the hill.

Too late. The kid disappeared into the cave.

Sixpersons fell back onto the ground. His leg hurt, and he cursed in Cherokee before pushing himself up. They would have had McCoy cornered, trapped in that cave like a rat. They could have waited him out, starved him out, or even smoked him out.

But he was in there . . . with the boy. And Jackson's own shotgun.

 

 

The ground was slick, hard, cold.

James slid down and dived to his left just as a shotgun blast roared. In the deafening confines of the cave, he felt as if his eardrums had been ripped out of his body. The right side of his face stung, and he thought for a moment that he had been hit by shot from McCoy's fancy weapon. He blinked, felt the blood tricking down his cheek, and understood that the blast had showered him with gravel and sand.

Carefully, he managed his breathing and peeked around the corner. The passageway seemed narrow but not too long. He couldn't tell if there were any side tunnels or side rooms, anyplace McCoy could be hiding.

It wasn't as dark as he had expected it to be. In fact, he could see pretty well. Keeping the shotgun's barrel pointed directly down the cave, he took a step into the open, breathed, and took another step, his finger tight on the Winchester's trigger.

He had to step over some rocks and duck his head. He waited. Sweat burned those wounds on his cheek, but he ignored the pain. He tried not to blink. He stepped again. Slowly. Again. His eyes moved to both sides with every step, then focused on what lay ahead. Just dark earth.

Five yards. Ten. He had to step over more rubble. His ears had stopped ringing. He could hear his feet on the cave's floor. So . . . he wasn't deaf.

Ten more yards and he stopped, leaning into a small depression in the cave's wall. He had come to the entrance of a larger room. Beyond it he saw another tunnel and light shining from the end where Maxwell had jumped up in his futile attempt to kill Jackson Sixpersons.

How long did that tunnel go? James could not tell. Nor did he have any idea how big the room was. It had to be larger than the tight chamber he found himself in. Likely, McCoy hid in there somewhere, but on which side? Left? Right? Or was he waiting in the tunnel on the far side of the room.

For a moment, James looked back, staring at the tunnel through which he had come. He had the urge, a desperate desire, to run back . . . and out of the cave. Back to Sixpersons and his father. Back to where he could see the sun and sky and feel the wind. But if he did that, his back would be to McCoy's shotgun. And he would die.

He fought down the panic and the bile rising in his throat. Just when he felt he would collapse in total fear, a certain calm overcame him, and he thought with complete and total clarity, remembering what his father had told him when he'd first—almost the only—time he'd taken him hunting.
“Patience. Be patient. Make sure what you're shooting at before you squeeze that trigger. This isn't a race. You race, you lose.”

It was not James who had to get out of the cave. It was McCoy, and he would have to do it soon. Before other posses—there had to be men already riding from Fort Washita—caught up with him. James could wait—all day and all night, but McCoy could not get out of the cave without showing his face.

Smiling, breathing normally again, James moved to the center of the tunnel and sat down. He did, of course, keep the barrel of Jackson Sixpersons' twelve-gauge aimed at the opening as he waited for Link McCoy.

James lost all track of time. Ten minutes? An hour? Five hours? He wasn't sure. It didn't matter. He just sat there holding the shotgun, which never seemed heavy. He never felt tired. He kept quiet, kept listening, and just waited.

And waited.

He felt a presence sitting beside him and knew it was his dead uncle. Oh, he knew Uncle Jimmy wasn't really there, and he didn't turn to look at some ghost. His eyes stayed focus on the opening, but he listened.

“Here's what you need to know, kid,” his uncle was telling him, just as he had done all those months ago back at that boxcar turned into a home near McAdam, Texas. “It ain't the rifle. It ain't never the rifle. It's the fella shooting it.”

Rifle. Or shotgun. And James understood then that he was a much better man than Link McCoy. He knew he had more patience than an outlaw. He knew Link McCoy was a fool who had planned the robbery but had been outsmarted. He knew McCoy had planned the ambush, only to be outsmarted again. He knew McCoy was as good as dead.

A scream sounded, echoing crazily in the big room in front of James, but he wasn't scared. He simply tightened the shotgun's butt against his shoulder and got ready to dive to his right.

McCoy came from James's left and pulled the trigger first, the sawed-off barrel belching smoke and flame and sending the chopped-up bits of razors splattering off the cave's wall. A few pieces whistled past James's head, and one even clipped the cloth of his shirtsleeve near the shoulder.

James had been smart to sit in the center. He squeezed the trigger. Patiently. Making sure of his target. McCoy had rushed his shot and it had cost him his life.

Above the ringing in his ears and the bitter smoke burning his eyes, James saw the gunman hurled against the wall. James jacked another shell into the chamber and slid through the opening to the large room.

McCoy's shotgun banged and clanged as it clattered across the floor. James brought his weapon up, drew a bead on the outlaw, but relaxed his finger on the trigger. The killer had pulled himself up, moaning, coughing, and was crawling through the opening.

James calmly walked across the room. It wasn't as big as he had imagined. He watched McCoy clawing his way up the entrance . . . or maybe the exit—it didn't matter—into the sunlight.

James stopped to pick up the outlaw's shotgun and ducked as he went into the tunnel, following the bloody trail the robber and thief was leaving.

He stuck the barrel of McCoy's shotgun through the opening, tossed it onto the ground, pushed Jackson Sixpersons' Winchester into the fresh air, and laid it down gently. His arms came through. He looked at the clear blue sky, and felt himself being lifted out of the cave and onto the top of the hill.

James Mann looked at his father. “Hello, Pa.”

His father answered by squeezing him into a bear hug.

James felt as if he could have stayed like that forever, burying his head into his dad's shoulders. He felt like crying but didn't. Finally, his dad stepped back but put an arm around James's shoulders.

Jackson Sixpersons, hobbling on a piece of wood as a crutch, one leg wrapped with bloody white strips of bandages, stood over the body of Link McCoy, who would rob no more banks, trains, Texans, or Chickasaws.